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STATERs

STATERs

Penn State football fans and student volunteers set a new record for recycling collected after a home game: the 4,356 bags picked up after the Ohio game on Sept. 1 were nearly triple the average post-game collection of 1,500.

It's often said that on game day, Penn State's Beaver Stadium becomes the third-largest "city" in Pennsylvania. Each home football game attracts more than 200,000 tailgaters, spread across 110 acres of University fields, generating 50 to 100 tons of waste. Instead of sending all that waste to local landfills after every home game, Penn State encourages fans to recycle. By strategically placing more than 290 recycling carts throughout tailgating areas and recycling more than 85 tons of waste each football season, Penn State also raises money for the Centre County United Way.

Clean technology is a growing industry. As the world grapples with the energy crisis, jobs in sectors such as wind power, solar, biofuels and biomaterials, conservation and efficiency are in higher demand. But college students don't have to study science or engineering to work in green industries. At Penn State, a wide variety of students are preparing to work in green professions in some surprising areas.

"You can change the world," Bill Nye the Science Guy told Penn State students Tuesday (Oct. 15) at an environmental forum on the University Park campus. "We have to find ways to do more with less," he said. "That is the key to the future. There is no cavalry coming over the hill. This planet is all we've got. Inefficiency is affecting everyone. With your brains, you can save the world."

It's not hard to find members of STATERs -- a new campus-recognized student recycling organization -- in a crowd of thousands who are tailgating at a Penn State football home game. Wearing matching fluorescent green shirts and carrying big blue bags with the universal recycling symbol around a Nittany Lion's head, STATERs are already well known in the grassy fields where football fans congregate.